Can take you for a ride

INVESTIGATION COMMENT

Give WHEN you fly off to the sun your spirits are high – until you land at the airport and try to collect your pre-booked hire car.

Twice in the past two years I have fallen foul of the cynical tactics of the car hire industry.

At Malaga airport my family and I faced a snail’s-pace queue for our two cars as just two staff tried to deal with planeload after planeload of holidaymakers.

But the company also had a neighbouring booth with two under-employed staff. They were there, we learned, for drivers who were willing to pay a premium of JOHN INGHAM about £100 per car just to get served more quickly.

It was extortion. Like most of the other holidaymakers I refused to be blackmailed – and waited in a bad tempered line. Meanwhile, the two staff in the blackmail booth were twiddling their thumbs when they could have been helping serve customers who had already agreed the price of their car in good faith.

And when we finally got to the counter these modern day brigands stung us for their costly insurance even though we had proof that we had already taken out our own.

If we did not take out their insurance, we were told, we would have to pay a deposit in the thousands of euros. We had visions of never seeing that again.

And then we could start the jolly process of queueing elsewhere – and paying the more expensive walk-up hire charges. As a result, when I went to Sicily and was greeted by another two-hour queue at a cheap and cheerful local firm, I was hardly surprised.

Among the many complaints were claims that holidaymakers had been charged up to £300 for what they said was non-existent damage, had to pay a deposit of £1,000, or were being charged £50 a week for a speeding fine which the driver suspected was not genuine.

So we walked out, found a firm we trusted, and took our chances with them. Happily, there were no surprises when we got home.